Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Ask an Immigration Lawyer. You ask. We answer. In this episode I want to talk about the National Interest Waiver.Just in a few minutes, give you a snippet of what it is and how you can get a Green Card without an employer. Typically, getting a Green Card through an employment based visa requires the employer sponsoring you by filing an immigrant petition for you. If you know any details about this it will tell you it’s a lengthy process and has quite a few steps and it takes several years to do that. It requires advertising in the newspapers. It requires interviewing qualified American employees and also it requires you to file the case first with the Labor Department and only upon approval with the Immigration Service which as a result makes a lot of employers reluctant to do this because it is quite cumversant to them to go through all this points. Before you hire for national *** visa employer must first obtain a permanent labor certification from the United States Department of Labor. This process is not easy at all. The Labor Certification demonstrates that the Department of Labor has determined there are not sufficient workers who are able, willing, qualified to perform the job. What will this involve is a bunch of hurdles that the employer must go and some times these cases can be audited which will add another year to the process. In some cases employer don’t want to do this because it’s just so complicated. And so in this case if an employer is not willing to do that the employee is left with an option of trying to do it themselves. Sometimes if you’re seeking an employment based Green Card and you don’t have an employer and you are, let’s say, an entrepreneur and you have your own company and you have great ideas or impact on the United States as a whole you will be qualified for what is called the National Interest Waiver. This is an interesting option under the EB2 category for qualified individuals jump off labor certification can be waived. Because they are that unique and their skills and expertise are that important for the United States economy This is *** individual work as in the national interest of the United States that individual doesn’t need a job offer labor certification to get a Green Card. So recent changes about a year ago opened the door for a new standard in National Waiver called the Matter of Dhanasar and we’ll probably do a separate podcast just on that but essentially what it did it opened the door for National Interest Waiver to make it a little bit more focus and allow individuals that proposing *** has substantial merit and national importance second to what position to advance their proposed endeavor and third on balance it would be beneficial to the United States to waive the requirements of the job offer and the labor certification. So, these are the three requirements of the new Matter of Dhanasar. They changed the new standard for National Interest Waiver and made it more attractive to a lot of entrepreneurs and smart individuals that can apply for a Green Card without an employer. I would do another episode just on this particular case just to show you how you can do that without an employer. If you have any questions about how to get a Green Card without an employer using the National Interest Waiver EB2 Category please post your questions to us. We’ll post them on our website Ask an Immigration Lawyer and thanks for listening.